Remember Me
by TheAlabasterPhoenyx
Summary: Moneta Berkley is a mutant trying to find her way in a world that wants nothing more than to keep her controlled and hidden. As she searches for who she is, she finds that all she knows may not be all there is to life. [Possible Magneto/OC. We'll see what happens.]
1. Chapter 1: Hope

**Hey everybody! I've been away for a while, reading and doing a boatload of homework (still am, actually, but that's beside the point), and I've decided it's long past time for a new story. I'm not quite sure where this is going yet, but I'm aiming for a possible Magneto love story, about ten chapters. We'll see what happens.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men.**

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_Chapter 1 ~ Hope_

The sun wakes me harshly, shining brightly onto my face and blinding me the moment I open my eyes.

Groaning, I slap a hand over my face to block the glare, thus succeeding not only in darkening my face but also hitting it uncomfortably hard. My face now stinging, I stumble out of bed, searching blindly for the curtains.

I manage to close them to the sun, but not after considerable stumbling, crashing, and swearing.

Wiping a hand wearily down my face, I look at the clock to find the minute hand ticking dangerously close to the twelve. I bite out a curse and race around the room, dressing and running out the door in lightning speed.

I skid into the classroom just as the bell rings, still brushing a comb through my hair and blinking the sleep from my eyes.

"Nice of you to join us, Miss Berkley. If you would please take a seat?"

He gestures at an empty chair in the front of the classroom, and I bite back the curse I want to spit at him for his barely-concealed amusement. It is a well-known fact that I can never manage to get up on time, and ever since that stupid alarm clock broke a week ago, I've been late nearly everywhere. I don't need constant laughter at my expense; I know how damn funny I look racing to class with a comb still in my hand and my shoes untied.

"Language, please."

And of course, I'm still half-asleep so I don't remember that this particular professor reads minds and would be able to hear all my bitten-back curses.

What a wonderful way to start the day.

After class, I make to race out the door, eager to return to my room and get back to sleep for a few hours, but a gentle nudge in my mind stays me and I turn to the professor with a groan.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Walk with me?" He wheels out of the room in a specially-designed plastic wheelchair, expecting me to follow. I fall into step next to him as we journey down the hall.

"What is it?"

"How are you holding up?"

My breath catches in my chest because _of course_ that's what he would be asking. Why did I ever think I could escape his notice?

I do not answer, and I steadfastedly do not think about the long nightmare-filled nights and bare few hours of sleep in which I manage to catch rest and memories that are not mine that fill my emotions to bursting.

He looks at me with this look of care in his eyes, and even though I try to look away, I am caught in his gaze.

I stop walking, barraged by a feeling of pain and betrayal so intense it takes my breath away. For a moment I want to fall into the wall and just curl up in a fetal position, clutching my body to try to drive away the pain, but then I take a deep breath and remember that it's not real.

Not for me, anyway.

"What was it this time?"

_I am on a beach panicking they left me how could they leave me am I dying waves of blinding pain rising from my back breath short panicking shadows over me they're gone am I alright? I can't feel my legs I can't feel my legs I can't feel my legs how could they do this to me?_

The professor looks like I just slapped him, backing up an inch with the force and surprise of that painful memory. He says nothing more, just looking at me with something like pity and apprehension and discomfort in his bright kind eyes, and I don't want his pity because this is who I am.

"I make you uncomfortable." It is not a question; it is a statement. It's ironic that I should make a telepath uncomfortable, since our powers are uncannily similar.

"That's absurd, Moneta." But I can feel it in him: the roiling discomfort, the wish to get away from someone who can take and see and judge his worst memories with just a glance in his eyes. "I merely wish to help you control it."

And now he has me intrigued – what if there is a way? What if I could manage some semblance of control over this? What if some day I could look into someone's eyes without the fear of experiencing pain and rage and despair and love and roiling, frothing emotion trying to burn me alive?

"How?"

My name is Moneta Isle Berkley.

I am twenty-four years old.

I am a mutant.

This is the story of how I _lived_.

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**Alright, so that's the first chapter of the first X-Men story I've ever posted online. I've started a fair few, but this is the only one I've gathered enough courage to show off, so please tell me what you all think!**

**We all write to become better writers, so please help with that and give me your thoughts on my writing. (I know, it's a small sample size, but I have four chapters written and [hopefully] more coming)**

**Review! :)**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


	2. Chapter 2: Resentment

**Hello everyone! I'm sorry I lost track of this story. I literally lost track of it - I forgot I posted this. Oops. I've just been really busy with real life.**

**But now I'm going to try to get back into writing! Yay!**

**Enjoy this chapter, everyone.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned X-Men, Charles would not have been so cowardly in the second movie. :)**

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_Chapter 2 ~ Resentment_

Sometimes when I dream I know that it is real, but that doesn't stop me from pretending it isn't.

Charles says that I have to distance myself, build the walls and cage the memories, find myself and tell myself that this man, this child, this corpse, this pain, it isn't me. He says I need to tell myself it isn't real.

He doesn't understand that it _is _real.

For him, he is a person looking into another person's mind. Sometimes he sees everything, sometimes he searches, sometimes he gets flashes and thoughts, but there's always a clear distinction between _him_ and _them_. He knows where he stops and the other person begins, because that's the edge of what he can reach. He touches, but he does not take.

With me, I get the emotions, and emotions are real whether they truly are or not. I become the person in a way so much deeper than telepathy; I am not them, but I am no longer me.

All I can do is hold on to the pretense that I know who I am, that I am just a normal woman, that I can separate _me _from _them_ and wake up with a smile and not a scream.

I think that he knows I am lying now, but there is nothing he can do about it because for such a brilliant mutant, he really doesn't understand sometimes.

"No, really, I'm fine." There's that look again, and instead of holding his gaze I drop it to the glasses in my hands.

_Do you really think these will work?_ I am too afraid to voice my fears aloud, and so I fall back on thinking at him. Even if I have not managed to make much progress on my own mutation over this past year, I have still managed to get much better at controlling the influence his has over me. He cannot hear my thoughts unless I am directing them at him, and I guess that must be something of an improvement.

At least now he can't take those memories from me without my permission.

"I do have faith in Hank's ingenuity," is Charles's response, and I roll my eyes because he's just avoiding my question. Resentment coils like a small little snake in my breast, but I push it away from me and down into the darkness of subconsciousness because this man has helped me so much when no one else would, and I can't afford to mar his image in my mind with this arrogance and discomfort and lack of support I keep sensing in his gaze.

I put the tinted glasses on, pressing the metal to my skin like maybe if I place them on firmly enough, there's no chance they won't work.

As I look deeply into the eyes of the telepath and catch nothing, I should feel exultant that we finally found a way to suppress this dangerous unpredictable ability, but all I can really feel is that snake coming back to bite me because _this is not what I am supposed to do_ _with my gift_ and _why does he insist I work so hard on suppressing when I should be developing it_? He had told me "control" but after a year of work, I think he meant more "rid" because I am a frightful mutant.

Even a telepath is afraid of revealing his secrets to a young woman who cannot control how much emotion she absorbs.

But instead of being truthful I just smile and thank them both because here I am in this haven and they have helped me and they mean well, when all I really want to do is scream and tell them how much I want to die from the emotions but also how _alive_ they make me feel.

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I have finished school now, long overdue after what happened before I came here, and Charles wants me to stay on as a professor. Now that I can control what I can do, he says that I could help the others, provide another example of someone with a dangerous mutation who managed to master it and live a normal life.

I don't tell him that my life isn't normal, that it's spent hiding in dark corners and 'accidentally' misplacing glasses and lying to my friends and living off other people's emotions.

I just smile at him a little sadly.

"I need to go out, Charles. I need to go _live_. I'm really grateful for all your help, and I know that I'm going to miss this place, but I can't stay here forever." And for all his faults, I think he understands.

He might not know how many times I wished to smash these tinted glasses over his head, scream until I can't make a sound, breathe fire into the dark air and burn the world to ashes, love someone so hard it hurts; he might not know just how deeply I need to feel for myself, but he must have some idea how badly I need to do something, make my own memories.

He might not know about the insanity, but he understands the restlessness.

And if part of the reason I'm leaving is because of the rot in this house, in the suppression not control and fear not acceptance, well, he doesn't need to know that either.

"Moneta? We're going to miss you."

I give Hank a hug, and shake Charles' hand, and try to forget how much they never even cared to know who I could be with this mutation well-_integrated _not well-_suppressed_.

I try to remember all the good they have done me, and I must succeed because I can smile at them with genuine feeling as the door shuts inside of me.

"Good-bye, guys. I'll miss you too."

"Are you sure we can't convince you to stay? The students would love to have you teach them."

"No, Charles," I say with that smile that maybe now is from a memory of jubilation and victory and a bright new future, not anything of mine, "I've got to leave all this, start over, live a little. I'm sure you'll see me again."

And with that I refuse to look back as the door shuts not only inside me but also behind me, and I clutch my backpack with shaking eager hands and walk away from that mansion.

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**Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what all of you think. Even one review, guys, please!**

**Thank you to people who have favorited and followed: xXallegedangelXx, loufromearth, Francepaola29. I love you all! You are the reason I remembered about this story. And you are the reason I'm continuing it!**

**Alright everyone, have a wonderful week, and please leave a remark. Even if it has nothing to do with the story. Favorite word? Anything.**

**I love hearing from people.**

**~ TheAlabasterPhoenyx**


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